A sporking of Selfishness, PPC style
by Smoke
Summary: Three Agents of the PPC tackle a story titled "Selfishness."
1. Intro

When I wrote Selfishness, I didn't understand the culture around Fanfiction. I thought that everyone wanted to improve, and so I gave feedback as if everyone was aiming for professional publishing. I see now that the goal is to have fun writing and hopefully create something that people will have fun reading.

I fell into a group that would make fun of bad fanfiction. They are the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. Their bullying doesn't stop with sporking stories of people who don't necessarily want negative feedback; I also dealt with being bullied on a personal level in their forum.

Unless I've lost them, I do have sporkings I've wrote, but I doubt that any authors are really interested in seeing them. I have turned that honed blade towards my own stories, and so I present a sporking of Selfishness, which will start at chapter 2.

I do still accept negative reviews, so tell me if there's something you do not like.

* * *

When Kimberly woke up and wandered out of her bedroom, she noticed that her partner was not in the RC. She didn't think to check his bedroom because he didn't seem to sleep much and it was normal for him to be gone much of the time, but this time he was actually asleep. Kim figured he would show up when a mission came in because it always seemed to work that way.

Kim went through her morning routine of brewing her coffee before hopping into the shower. She had lied to Hue about how important it was that she make it herself, but that seemed to be the only way to stop him from doing it for her. It wasn't that she minded him doing it, but she had wondered how he could balance her admittedly charge-happy tendencies when he was doting on her.

It turned out that he had more trouble balancing the need to take charges versus the comfort of canon characters, and Hue could easily put his fondness for Kim aside when she was being unfair. After realizing that, Kim couldn't bring herself to own up to what she had thought was a beneficial lie and possibly hurt his feelings.

Kim was just coming to the showering stage of her routine when the console [bip]ed. She figured it would be bad news, but she brought it up immediately.

[You will receive a mission soon, and I want you to take Intern Samantha Frankson with you. Try to bring her and the self-insert back unharmed this time. -The Hydrangea.]

Kim figured that she had time to take a quick shower if she skipped drying her hair and braided it when she got back. The message hadn't specified where Kim could find Samantha, but the entire environment worked on plot convenience. Kim wandered the hallways until she came to one of the smaller combat-training gyms, and decided to just watch for a few minutes. Samantha stared intently as a muscular man demonstrated a basic hold on a padded robot. Samantha then tried the same move on the inert robot.

Kim was glad to see that the intern was getting some fighting skills, and hoped it would be enough this time. The robot then tried fighting back, and Samantha bared her fangs as she struggled to hold it. Kim still didn't know what Samantha was, but her pointed ears and yellow eyes marked her as something other than a world-one human.

The man said, "Okay, that's enough for today."

Samantha released the robot and bowed slightly to her trainer. "Thank you." Her features suddenly defied description as she turned to leave the gym. That's when she noticed Kim. "Agent Kim, are you here to train as well?"

"No, I came to find you. The Hydrangea wants me to take you on another mission," Kim said.

"Very well. I do not have my own equipment yet, and I should not require anything further."

Kim began walking and filled the uncomfortable silence with the first thing that popped into her head. "About last time, I feel bad that I told you to do something that got you shot."

She sighed noncommittally. "It was a small matter, and the error was mine."

Kim frowned. When it had happened, Samantha had looked like she was in pain. Then Kim figured that if she said it wasn't a big deal, it must not have been. "So, what are you?"

"I am a vampire."

Kim knew that anyone who was dangerous to fellow agents wouldn't be allowed to walk through the hallways freely, but it was a bit unsettling to work with someone who fed on human blood. Then again, maybe the bag of AB positive that medical gave her was just a transfusion because of how much she lost. Kim knew that she had a problem with believing in stereotypes and jumping to conclusions, but quizzing Samantha about her diet seemed like prying too much. Besides, Samantha had already been on one mission with them, albeit disguised as an anthropomorphic coyote.

Instead, Kim decided to worry about something more obvious. She tried concentrating on her traveling companion's features. Samantha's pale skin, pointed ears, yellow eyes, and dark lips, all became visible in turn, but slipped from Kim's notice when she focused on a different detail. "Why am I having trouble telling what you look like?"

"It is a spell to disguise my appearance," Samantha stated.

She couldn't figure out why Samantha wasn't talking much. It could have been that she really was mad about the last mission, or clamming up because she didn't like people knowing what she was. Then again, she wasn't really chatty during that mission. "Y'know, there are stranger things than you wandering around here. You shouldn't have to hide like that."

"It is for my own comfort," she admitted.

Kim figured that Samantha had some issues about being a vampire, even though she had bluntly answered a direct question about it. Kim decided that it was none of her business, and thought that the silence was preferable to how some supernatural creatures endlessly angsted about their nature.

Samantha hadn't intended to be aloof, she was just concentrating on the lesson she had just left. In addition, her vampirism had robbed her of her empathy, and she was unused to making humans feel at-ease in her presence.

When Kim and Samantha got to the RC, they heard the console [BEEEEE~] through the door. Kim went into the Response Center first and asked, "What do we got, Hue?"

He looked up from the console and noticed Samantha, though most of what he had to say didn't have words in Happy-Talk anyway. "It's a Hopper in a crossover between Soul Reaver 2 and ICO."

"Lemme guess, we don't have pocket fictionary cartridges for either of those," Kim sighed as she roughly braided her hair.

"I know the Soul Reaver series well, but not ICO," Samantha said. She had dropped her disguise spell, but her expression was inscrutable.

Internally, Samantha was fighting her anxiety. The last mission had again reminded her of one of the worst days of her life, but now she had to confront both that and the world where she had spent over four centuries fearing what would happen to her soul if she died there. Her only source of calm was knowing that she had no choice. Either she entered that world to protect it, or she would be stripped of her memories and sent there to die.

Hue smiled as he squeaked, "We can print ICO script, like last time."

"Alright, Draculina, since you know one of the canons, what sort of disguises should we need?" Kim asked.

"Please do not call me that." Samantha gazed at the mission report. "At the start, vampire hunters would be an appropriate disguise. I must warn you that I have not had combat training while transformed."

"DORKS is broke. I be human to talk better," Hue chirped. "ICO we can hide."

"If remaining hidden is an option, I would choose to retain my own form this time." Samantha bowed her head slightly.


	2. The Sporking

The agents emerged into a bedroom so generic that it looked like no-one had ever lived in it. While the author's note narrated, all three managed to scramble under the bed, which obligingly made itself large enough and high enough to accommodate them. Kim pulled the cord on the crash dummy and threw it into the middle of the room.

A/N: I haven't given up on my other projects, (not officially,) but this story was a lot easier than what I've been fighting with lately.

_It's not really a self-insert, though it looks that way. I'm hoping that it will also be different than all the other, "OMG, I got sucked into a video game," stories. I think the main differences are that it's a crossover, and Raziel doesn't have that 'instant fascination' syndrome that forces him to interact with the OC._

5/25/05 Disclaimer I do not own Raziel or Legacy of Kain. If I did, I would've made Umah wear something warm-looking.

"Instant fascination syndrome?" Samantha asked.

"We call it Suefluence or Aura of Smooth. It makes the canon characters do what the Sue wants." Kim sneered in disgust. "It looks like someone in Intel didn't even bother to read this since the note admits that it's not a self-insert."

"We're not assassins. We still have to treat her like she represents her author," Hue reminded Kim.

"Yeah, I know," Kim sighed. "Maybe the author will at least over-correct and give us an interesting anti-Sue. She says she's trying to be 'different' but that usually doesn't work out unless they know what they're doing."

He introduced himself as "The Gamester," and offered to transport me into any game of my choosing. This seemed too good to be true, so naturally I questioned him about some details.

"You won't come to any real harm," he assured me, "but the only way out of the game is to finish it. That also means that you can't try to take too many shortcuts to avoid the parts that you don't like."

"This seemed too good to be true," Kim sarcastically read. "Someone pops into your bedroom from nowhere and you don't even scream?"

Hue covered his eyes and gasped as the description of the insert's sleepwear left out any mention of a shirt. When the scene changed, it resolved gradually from the bedroom to the game, and the agents suffered less than the insert. Fortunately, the story decided that she was wearing her "RPG adventurer costume" even though she hadn't actually changed clothes.

"Hmm, she barely describes the scenery, so I'm assuming we're in a canon location?" Kim asked Samantha.

"Yes, this is... Portal to behind the Pillars, now!" Samantha's intense eyes and bared fangs suddenly made her look like a caged tiger.

Hue tried to stay calm even though the person who knew the canon was scared. He fumbled with the RA, but he just set it randomly because he didn't understand where she wanted to go and didn't know where it was anyway.

Fortunately Samantha saw where the portal led and hissed, "Not over water!" She brought her hands together as if cupping an invisible ball, but then she hesitated. She had gone through the ritual to set her Sanctuary spell to the most reliable landmark there was, but she wasn't eager to find out if it would actually work right outside of her version of Nosgoth. She relaxed as she realized that it should have been too late. "Wait, I must be out of range."

"What was that about?" Kim asked, irritated that her intern had panicked for no good reason.

Samantha had the decency to act mildly ashamed. "The Time Streamer would have activated his staff by now. It renders vampires helpless, and the experience is quite painful."

Unfortunately, the "several minutes" that the self-insert specified accounted for Moebius needing to control the time-streaming chamber, where Samantha assumed that the sorcerer walked into the room right before Raziel arrived. When Moebius disabled the wraith blade, the vampire clutched her chest and collapsed. Fortunately, she ended up wedged between the wall and a decorative column so the insert wouldn't see her.

Hue scrabbled at the RA some more, but Samantha gasped, "No."

A line of description made the canon fill in about five minutes of dialogue while the self-insert continued to gawk in disbelief.

Suddenly, Raziel turned and stared at me and questioned. "Who is that?"

Moebius turned to me, as if only noticing that I was there. However, his clouded eyes flashed a brilliant purple, indicating that the Gamester was still assuming his role. "Elizabeth is going to accompany you on your journey. Her advice should be beneficial" With that, Moebius disappeared.

"I do not need any help," Raziel sniffed. He shoved the door open and walked out into the hallway.

When the insert followed Raziel, Samantha lurched out of the hiding place and fell to her knees.

"Why didn't you want to get away from it?" Hue asked.

Samantha sighed and struggled to stand. "It seemed safest to endure the pain once I was affected." She hadn't been considering the water at that point, but rather how few dry areas weren't swarming with vampire hunters. She expected that the hunters would attack her mentors as well if they were noticed, and she didn't think they would survive even if she had the time to recover from the effects of the staff.

Kim frowned at the Words. "Did you notice that one part? She barely describes anything, and then she spent a whole three sentences on Raziel."

"I doubt that she would have chosen this game if she did not like him," Samantha pointed out.

Kim grimaced in disgust. "What is he? He looks dead and half-rotten."

"That is a close assessment," Samantha said. "I am unsure if it is appropriate to refer to all time-streaming chambers as Chronoplast chambers, nor if the word should be capitalized."

"Well, look it up when you get back so you know next time," Kim said.

"Moebius is possessed," Hue said. "We should have brought something to exorcise him."

"Or he might be a character replacement that's only acting possessed. Hopefully we'll see him again so we can take a reading," Kim said. "It's also possible to exorcise them without a source of canon, you just have to hit them harder."

Fortunately for the agents, the setting was running smoothly at the speed of the game, providing them with plenty of time between lines in the fanfiction. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to comment as the story jumped between isolated observations.

I ran after Raziel. He quickly dispatched the soldiers that barred his way. Raziel moved fast; I wouldn't have been able to keep up with him if Moebius' crusaders hadn't kept slowing him down.

Raziel kept glancing back at me, as if he was annoyed at being followed by a strange young girl. The route from the courtyard to the chapel was barred. This didn't prove to be any barrier to Raziel; he simply phased into the spectral realm. I didn't have that ability.

"Choppy sentences, the punctuation is unpolished, and she looks like she knows that she's supposed to be an example of bad behavior," Kim said. "Raziel's killing every mook in his way. Would he put up with her following him?"

"He might be willing to spare her since she is not barring his progress nor a threat," Samantha said. She hated that they were passing by rapidly-cooling bodies full of blood, but she wasn't sure how her mentors would react if she fed. Besides, Raziel's leavings were simply fresher than what was offered at The Watering Hole.

The self-insert began to cry as her lust-object left her behind. The Gamester-as-Moebius teleported her to non-canonical location simply known as his parlor and they "sat at a small table that was set for tea." Fortunately the Fiction-Location-Follower setting on their Remote Activator did not drag the agents along, and they were free to just read the Words.

Once in Moebius' parlor, Elizabeth had a mild temper-tantrum about how unfair it was that she couldn't keep up with her lust-object. The Gamester pointed out that the world was designed for Raziel's unique abilities, and then discussed her options for having a better adventure. She decided on bringing Raziel into a game where he would be forced to interact with her. Fortunately the Gamester wasn't a literal genie, or "Send us into Ico," would have meant a trip into another video-game character's body instead of the game titled ICO.

"The Gamester has a point," Hue commented. "How many self-inserts get new powers to help them?"

"I think we actually forgot to charge for that on some of them," Kim said. "That conversation brought up some other good points. It's a shame they just mentioned things without really talking about them."

I was surprised to find Moebius suddenly start to twitch. I could only guess that he and the Gamester were struggling for control of the body. I bore Moebius no ill will, but I also did not feel any sympathy for him. I gave a vague smirk at his surprise.

"She's mean," Hue commented.

"The Timestreamer is a vile creature and she should know it," Samantha spat. She then took a breath and said, "That balcony that they are standing on exists in another game's version of this location, but not in this one."

"What's with all the teleportation?" Kim asked as she wrote down the charges.

Samantha shrugged. "It is simply a part of the game."

A long block of review responses and a fresh disclaimer gave them a brief respite as the next chapter began.

Yeah, I ate dirt on that one. It says in my notes, "It doesn't occur to Elizabeth to feel sorry for Moebius." Since this is first-person without foreshadowing, I couldn't say anything about that, so it turned into a really lame line. Liz also hasn't played anything except the Soul Reaver Series, (though she is aware of Defiance's ending,) so she doesn't know the whole truth. However, there are people out there that don't have an instant-kill response towards Moe, I'm sure.

The description for the new location was a little less sparse than in the Sarafan stronghold, but the story still had to draw on its canon source for its appearance. Someone who had never seen the castle where ICO was set would only know that the self-insert was in a small round cage [that was] suspended at the top of a high round tower. Raziel was standing on the spiral staircase that wound around the inside.

"I do not think that Raziel would immediately realize that he is in a different world," Samantha pointed out. "His previous encounter with a time-streaming device transported him through space as well as time, and he has no reason to believe that this encounter was any different."

"Even without an aura of smooth, I guess she couldn't figure out how to get his attention without doing something to him," Kim commented. "Hue, go back and take care of Moebius."

"Okee-Dokey." He took the bagful of equipment, save for the Character Analyses Device and spare Remote Activator, and portalled away.

"We have to escape this castle," I said. I grew suddenly nervous; Raziel's stare was unnerving.

"So little to say and she had to say it twice," Kim sighed.

"Her luck is cause for concern," Samantha said slowly. "Up until now, Raziel was not given a compelling reason to spare her, and she did have his attention."

Kim cautiously took a reading on her Character Analyses Device. "He's about eleven percent out-of-character, which is actually okay. Even in good fanfiction, the canon usually reads a little off."

I walked over to a row of four large stone blocks. Carved into them were the images horned children, hugging their knees to their chests. For a moment, I doubted that it would work, but I had been the one in the cage.

Then, white energy flowed out of my body and into the statues. It felt odd, like the prickly sensation when a limb goes to sleep. After an expectant moment, the statues moved aside, and the spirit gate opened.

"There we go." Kim was especially smug as she wrote down the charge. "Gaining special powers while hopping."

The self-insert warned Raziel that she was the only one who could open the gates, and that he wouldn't get out without her. He threatened to jump off the side of the castle and leave her, but she pointed out that he still wouldn't be able to get back to his world. It was clear that Raziel still didn't think much of the girl.

The agents followed at a safe distance along the wall-walks, comparing what was happening to a walkthrough of the game. ICO didn't have much dialogue, but Raziel and Elizabeth kept up a steady stream of bickering.

"Were I come from, we have things called video games," I started. I wracked my brain for a way to explain it. "Someone creates an illusion of a world and a story to go with it. Then another person can control a character in that illusion. It's an interactive story, the player has to actually do things to see the story progress."

"Introducing twenty-first century concepts to a medieval character," Kim said as she wrote it down. Since she wasn't watching the words at the moment, she missed the misspelling of "where."

"Technically, Raziel is from a post-apocalyptic world that went through an industrial revolution and still possesses electricity at least." Samantha pointed out as she flipped through the game walk-through. "It is odd that Raziel would insist that he is not a sacrifice when she is simply speaking of a cursed boy who was imprisoned to die. It appears that he is making a statement for no reason other than the foreshadowing that she mentions, and this guide does not shed any light on the connection."

Kim pointedly did not scratch out the anachronism charge and continued scribbling in shorthand. "That's omniscient knowledge. Would he really need to ask for her help?"

Samantha shook her head. "His games have more puzzles than this, but I think that he is merely being impatient. Why solve the puzzle yourself when someone else already knows the answer?"

The self-insert and Raziel followed the path of the game they were in. Elizabeth needed some coddling because she was physically unfit, but she also carried a bomb to solve a puzzle when the princess she had replaced would have simply stood and watched.

Samantha hissed as the self-insert grabbed Raziel's hand and dragged him past a number of enemies. Moments later, Raziel saw a chance to escape through the main gate of the castle. As the doors began to close, he grabbed the self-insert and tried to drag her with him.

"I could have told you that wouldn't work," I snapped angrily, rubbing my bruised arms.

"How much longer must I endure this waste of time?" Raziel demanded.

"I'd say that we're about a quarter of the way through this game," I huffed. "The time would pass more pleasantly if you would change your attitude."

"Why should I have a different attitude?" Raziel argued. "I'm trapped in a giant puzzle with a helpless cow of a girl."

"My name is Elizabeth," I growled. "Shorten it to Eliza or Liz if your lack of lips gives you trouble with the 'B,' but you will not compare me to cattle."

Raziel cocked his head towards the gate, as if wondering whether killing me was worth becoming trapped here forever.

"Her author is really struggling with the concept of first person," Kim scoffed as she reiterated an earlier charge. "And she stopped talking like a real person for a minute." She frowned as she checked the Words. "Actually, except for the insert's dialogue, the whole thing sounds like she's trying to sound smart. Why didn't I notice the thesaurus abuse?"

Samantha stared at the words for a moment. "The Legacy of Kain series would repulse those who have a dislike for florid language."

"I really hope that you make it through your internship so I don't have to deal with this canon again," Kim said as she brought out a bleepette. She usually smoked normal cigarettes during missions and saved the [brain-bleach]bleeperin-infused ones for the end, but she felt that her world had gone topsy-turvy as far as what normal language sounded like.

"There is something else that I find troubling, but I do not know what it is," Samantha said as she alternated between staring at the Words and reading through the script.

"I meant to ask you why you hissed," Kim said.

Samantha read aloud:

My skin was electrified with all the shades and open portals in the area. "Don't fight them, just run," I ordered as I grabbed Raziel's talon.

It wasn't until we got to the spirit gate on the other side of the courtyard when Raziel bothered to pull his hand out of my grasp. The residual energy from the spirit gate fried all of the shades in the area.

"I don't believe that Raziel would tolerate being treated in that manner." She closed the script. "And then he dragged her towards the exit. A young boy like Ico would likely risk his freedom out of compassion for Yorda, but I am not certain that there was a reason given for Raziel to do so."

Kim took another CAD reading and frowned. "It's at ten percent now. Keep looking for what's wrong, but we can't charge for out-of-character if he's close."

The rest of the scene managed to follow the shape of the one in the game without plagiarizing the dialogue. However, the insert made another wish, and Raziel turned from an emaciated corpse into the "handsome vampire" that he was before his execution. However, due to the wording of her wish, Raziel's wings were boneless flaps of skin that were more useless than before because he could no longer use them to glide.

Just then, Hue returned. "I got the canon materials, but Moebius wasn't possessed anymore, and the neuralyser doesn't work on him."

Samantha sighed. "I was wondering if he was actually blind."

There was a very odd author's note in the chapter break.

Actually, "Selfishness" refers to the clingy fan girl's refusal to take a hint and leave Raziel alone. I suppose it also refers to Raziel's refusal to acknowledge her feelings.

I fixed to chapter yesterday, so I'm not going to delay it any longer. (What was I thinking, having Liz pull the whole "I don't have long to live," act.)

6/1/05 Disclaimer: I don't own Raziel or Ico. Elizabeth is a stock character type.

"Oh for the love of... You actually bothered to rewrite parts, and it still turned out this bad? You should have left that in and made this a proper troll-fic!" Kim said bitterly. "And what's with not claiming ownership of your own OC?"

"Don't attack the author. It's not allowed and it's not a good habit," Hue reminded her. "She'll probably make more mistakes that you can charge for."

"What's wrong with you?" Raziel asked.

"You're being a jerk!" I spat. "You act like being in my company is some great burden."

Raziel withdrew his talon and crouched on the ledge. "I was trying to find the secret of my destiny, but instead I got dragged here."

"You're happier not knowing," I muttered.

"I don't care for your opinion," Raziel sneered.

"Whiney giant smurf," I scowled, turning my back towards Raziel.

Kim wrote down the charge. "I would call that an inappropriate nickname."

"He may not understand the wording of the insult, but he would comprehend the meaning," Samantha admitted. "I am concerned. It is unlike him to display the patience of a saint, and there are things that he could do to her without diminishing her usefulness."

Kim took another reading. "These things can lose their calibration, and even the digital CADs aren't one hundred percent accurate, but I don't think he'd read at nine percent if he was seriously out-of-character." Curiously, she pointed it at Hue. "This is actually reading high by about point-two percent."

Samantha tried to figure out why Raziel was enduring torture with little reaction. Perhaps he was afraid of his newly-reawakened bloodthirst, and not willing to harm her at all in case he went too far. Or maybe there was something that kept him from thinking about proper punishments. Surely he wasn't suffering from Stockholm syndrome so quickly. Having Raziel "pining for his defiled nobility" wouldn't account for him acting so nice, unless he had a very twisted view of human ideals.

Then Samantha realized the answer. "He is following the script to this game, which is, in a meta sense, in-character for him as a video-game character."

Kim stared at her notebook. "That's gotta be a charge, but I got no idea how to word it." She finally settled for noting Samantha's observation in the margin.

The chapter continued with more bickering between Elizabeth and Raziel, though there were a few moments that could have been used as seeds for sympathetic understanding if they hadn't been ignored. Then Raziel's hydrophobia was highlighted as Elizabeth had to briefly take Ico's role and fail.

"What's with the water?" Kim asked.

"Water burns our flesh like acid. Raziel has extra cause to fear it because he keenly knows just how agonizing it is." The vampire agent was grateful that she was watching the action from a vantage point instead of having to follow the path of the game.

Eventually, the self-insert started getting tired of the game. The story pointed out just how meaningless time was, and the agents could sympathize at least with that aspect, though it also annoyed them because it meant there was no time for sleep. At least the actions between the dialogue were now sped-up from the agents' point of view, meaning that the insert was still suffering more from it than they were.

As we approached the center of the bridge, I told Raziel, "You might be able to get out of the castle, but you won't be able to leave the game."

He stopped and turned to look at me, but the castle chose that moment to lash out at us. Lightening flew out from the two orbs on either side of the gate and knocked us apart. Raziel was nearly thrown off of the bridge, but he managed to catch the edge.

"One misspelling," Kim commented before chuckling. "It was kinda satisfying to see her get beaned with a bottle of hair bleach."

"Even with her warning, it seems that Raziel is still being compelled to follow the script rather than deciding to act," Samantha said. "I am not familiar with his specific abilities as a vampire, but I imagine that he should be able to leap further than a mere boy could."

The last thing I heard was Raziel's echoing yell as the darkness engulfed me.

Suddenly, I could feel again. I was inside the sacrifice room; glowing coffins lined the walls.

While the abrupt scene change made sense in that a first-person narrator lost consciousness and woke up again, the agents were still flung hard to the stone floor. Fortunately they landed behind a short stairway and the insert couldn't see them.

The Gamester then reminded Elizabeth that the rain would hurt Raziel, and that some of the upcoming puzzles required swimming. She could tell that the Gamester wanted her to make another wish, and she decided that Raziel would probably rather be human than be turned back into a wraith.

My mind kept drifting back to Raziel. I kept asking the Gamester if Raziel was still unconscious. Or occasionally I would ask if he were still alive.

Finally, the Gamester couldn't take it any longer. "He's awake now, see for yourself." She waved her hands, and the viewing basin from the Sarafan stronghold appeared.

Kim rubbed her temples. "And another instance of her knowing that she's supposed to be annoying."

Hue held up the disc for ICO and suggested an exorcism.

"Yeah, I think that's all we're getting for this thing," Kim said. "Tranquilize the girl so she doesn't get in the way. Then we can send Raziel home and charge her when she wakes up."

"I hate to interrupt you, but I cannot allow you to end the fun just yet." The Gamester, still in the body of the Queen, was standing on the ledge above the agents.

Before they could react, the agents were suddenly on a beach at the base of a cliff. The brightness of the sand dazzled all three of them after the gloom of the castle. Kim cussed. Hue normally would have chided her, but he was too busy worrying that his heart would burst through his chest. Samantha wasn't sure what they were afraid of, but she fought to stay calm. She knew that if she lost control of her instincts, she might hurt her mentors.

Kim had read about another Despatch case that involved a powerful magical servant, but that agent had been able to sneak up on it. "This is out of our league." She angrily fished around for the communicator, but first her hand fell on the Remote Activator. She considered just abandoning the Duty, but she knew that the Flowers would not be happy about it. After the communicator failed to give any response but static, she did try the RA to find it was unresponsive.

"What now?" Hue asked.

Kim glanced at Hue and Samantha. While she was used to being in charge, she never had to deal with not being in control. "I don't know."

After a while, the Gamester, still in the form of the Queen, stood before them. "I have a little time to deal with you, now."

Desperately, Kim followed procedure. "In the name of the PPC, I charge you with…"

"Yes, I know about your tawdry organisation," the Gamester said. "Kimberly Stone, your main purpose is to find fault in what amateurs write for their own amusement and then share. You are the symbol of what is wrong with the mission of the PPC."

"If they didn't want criticism, they shouldn't have shared it," Kim said.

"That is not how fanfiction works," the Gamester said. "I will send you where you wish, and should you choose to go back to the PPC and not retire, I will not interfere. But you should really consider leading a more useful life."

The Gamester then turned to Hue. "I know that you came from a badly-written story, but consider that your author was only nine when she wrote it. She posted it when she was in her twenties, and she knew it was bad, but it still gave her joy to share it. She wasn't doing any harm to Rainbow Brite or the Star Wars universe, and Dagobah would always be remembered as a dank swamp despite her self-insert attempting to make it colorful."

The Gamester stepped closer to Hue, who was staring at the ground. "You don't even like working for the PPC, and always try to find the good in the stories that you are sent to criticize. I also offer you the choice of where to go, and I suggest that you join Chroma in the My Little Pony universe."

Hue nodded solemnly because his throat was too tight to speak. He knew that he had always felt that he was doing wrong, but he didn't know how to admit it. He hoped that he could actually be as good as he wanted to be instead of being tricked into being bad.

When the Gamester turned to Samantha, she was the first to speak. "I only do this under duress. I do not want to go back to Nosgoth, and I certainly do not want to die there. If you can hide me from the PPC, or kill me on Earth and completely destroy my body, I will take your offer."

The Gamester gave a sad smile. "I put you into the hands of your Author, and I do not know if purgatory or oblivion awaits for you."


End file.
